Doctrine

...[men] think that sincerity of mind in the belief of error

ought to be accepted as an equivalent for the belief of the Truth;

judging thus because their feelings are so shocked at the idea

of the few that will be saved by the obedience of faith.

In all generations have God and His creatures been at issue on this point.

He says, ' Believe and do the truth'

they say,

' Sincerely believe, and do what you think is true;

and though it may not really be so, you shall be saved.'

Thus, God predicates salvation, justification, holiness, etc.,

on 'the obedience of faith:'

while men inculcate sincerity of opinion - as the panacea of their souls.

Brother John Thomas

They are unfaithful

to the doctrine of Christ,

who from any motive of personal interest

would weaken the point of doctrine,

or soften it for the gratification of their natural feelings,

or for fear of hurting the feelings of the enemy,

and so affecting their popularity with him-

Brother John Thomas

Truth is always consistent with itself;

and needs nothing to help it out;

it is always near at hand,

and sits upon our lips,

and is ready to drop out before we are aware;

whereas a lie is troublesome

and sets a man's invention upon the rack;

and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

Brother John Thomas

We warn our readers against this easy kindly school who,

in much innocence it may be,

have carnalized the newly recovered doctrines of the kingdom and life by Christ,

and alloyed them with the apostasy,

committing fornication with the Harlot of the Earth

and her daughters in matters of doctrine-

and in matters of spirit and practice,

obliterating the line which divides the servants of God from the servants of the flesh,

and generally reducing the truth to a few soulless propositions

loosely held as a mere bond of social connection and entertainment.

They have in fact brought about a Laodiceanism wherever their influence is potent.

Brother Robert Roberts

Ambassador 1866

Where the ignorant acquire a smattering

of the Truth, and, loving the power for its own sake,

and the facility it affords for self-glorification,

set up to rule their fellows,

be they rough or polished as kings,

confusion and every evil work is sure to follow.

Our bearing towards such should be a standing rebuke.

We ought to give no countenance;

but, by abstaining from association with them,

whether they request or otherwise,

refuse or decline identification with them.

Brother John Thomas

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Psalm 11:3

Foundations can be undermined in a manner that is not apparent to outward observation,

until, suddenly the structure falls,

and its fall is blamed on a slight gust of wind that just happened at the same time.

The defense of the foundations is the first and most urgent duty.

Unity is the cement that makes the foundation strong.

To achieve unity,

there must be an agreed standard, and that standard must govern.

The natural minds of men vary to the four winds,

but the Word of God is one.

The scriptural standard is perfection-

"Be ye perfect."

We shall never in this life attain to perfection,

but we must agree upon it as the standard,

and constantly strive toward it.

Unity can never be built on compromise,

but only strict and humble submission to the Word of God in all

respects, large and small.

There is no large and small with God's commands.

Brother Robert Roberts

The estimate of wrong doings

depends upon the standard recognized.

The standard current in communities

would not include Bible depreciation

in the category of wrong doing;

but by the standard established by God in Israel

(which is the standard recognized by true brethren in Christ),

there is no greater act of wrong doing

than to interfere with His own Word.

Brother Robert Roberts

False doctrine

we shall doubtless always have to combat, while this probation lasts,

and we must not shun our duty;

but this is a comparatively easy battle.

It is only a small part of the conflict that has to be waged over the whole field of life.

In the largest form of the conflict,

our whole minds are the battle ground, and the war is a war of ideas,

which are the great force leading to action.

One state of mind is natural to us.

Another state of mind is that in which God finds pleasure.

He has given us the means of generating this other state of mind;

and victory consists in successfully establishing this state of mind

in the place of that which is natural, and acting it out in life.

Brother Robert Roberts

The Christadelphian

1884

There is such a persistent logic in truth

that the least deviation will betray into error.

The Christadelphian

1894

Let every tower fall

unless built upon a sure foundation.

Opinions may be plenteous as blackberries,

but what use unless established by unimpeachable evidence?

Brother Henry Sulley

Pantaletheia

1899

Without unity of doctrine,

unity - real unity - cannot be obtained.

We must hope on.

There will be true unity in the Kingdom of God for which we wait.

It will come in "such an hour as ye think not" said the Lord,

but he gave signs whereby we may know that his coming is near.

We see them all in active operation, and we know that his coming draweth nigh.

Our only reasonable attitude in the circumstances is to be always ready-

Sister Jane Roberts 1907

...Edward Turney renounced the fellowship of the Dowieites years ago,

and now he renounces his renunciation,

and asks them, with open arms, to come to his bosom;

not, we would warn them, for the love of them,

but for hatred of others against whom he can use them.

They will find the bosom cold when the heat of present hate subsides.

The spectacle may open the eyes of some who are being misled to their destruction."

Brother Robert Roberts

The Christadelphian

1874

It is all the difference between faith and opinion,

between

'discussing everything and settling nothing'

and searching the scriptures, and believing what is written.

Brother John Thomas

1865

Progress

is a nice watchword,

but it is possible to mistake retrogression for progression.

Brother Robert Roberts

1890

Do you say we cannot be certain?

Then we differ.

There is an ever-learning and never attaining class-

ever-debating and never settling-

at home in endless froth-plungings like dogs in a puddle.

They were extant in Paul's day;

they have not ceased since; they are active now.

If you cannot recognise them, we do not quarrel with you;

but we cannot deny our own senses.

We must perforce exercise the prerogative of discrimination,

and, knowing the right road in the dark, take it-

Brother Robert Roberts

1890

It is a good thing

to be “for peace” and to “exercise charity,”

but these must be held in strict subordination to the conditions

which divinely precede them.

God is the pattern.

The perfection of peace is the ultimate design of all his procedure:

but you never find Him, for the sake of peace,

abandoning any of the conditions which are necessary to secure it.

Brother Robert Roberts

1866

Men who will not investigate, yet denounce,

are either fools or knaves.

There are multitudes of this sort of people in all parts of the world.

Their unwillingness to investigate what they denounce arises from a diversity of causes:

pride, avarice, love of ease, dullness of intellect,

indifference to truth and error, to right and wrong, etc.

are among the conditions that involve men in such folly and wickedness.

Brother John Thomas

The Herald

1851

No one has any right

to set up his own ignorance as the limit of that which God has revealed.

A thing may be unknown to such a man,

but it does not therefore follow that it is either absolutely unintelligible or a secret.

He may not know of it, or, if explained to him,

he may not have intellect enough to comprehend it,

or his prejudices or sectarian bias may darken his understanding --

this by no means makes the thing unintelligible or mysterious to other people.

All that such persons have a right to say is,

"we do not know anything about it."

Brother John Thomas

Elpis Israel

The nearer the spring head - the clearer the water;

the further off, the muddier,

and the more encumbered with extraneous matters in solution.

Brother John Thomas

Herald 1860

It is one thing

to wish to have truth on our side,

and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of the truth.

There is no genuine love of the truth implied in the former.

Truth is a powerful auxiliary, such as everyone wishes to have on his side;

everyone is rejoiced to find, and therefore seldom fails to find,

that the principles he is disposed to adopt - the notions he is inclined to defend,

may be maintained as true,

A determination to "obey the truth," and to follow wherever she may lead,

is not common.

In this consists the genuine love of truth;

and this can be realized in practice, only by postponing all other questions

to that which ought to come foremost,

"What is Truth?"

The Herald

1851

If a man spoils the furniture in a house by throwing water about,

to put out a fire kindled by a careless servant, who is to blame for the water-

the man or the servant?

The servant undoubtedly, though the man threw the water.

Ahab complained to Elijah that he (Elijah) was a troubler of Israel

in restraining the rain.

Elijah denied the impeachment, and said it was Ahab that was to blame.

How was this?

Elijah was the restrainer of the rain, and yet put the blame on Ahab.

Because Ahab was the first cause. Our current divisions have a first cause.

Place them there, and you will be right.

Brother Robert Roberts

It is an honor

to a man to change as often as he is convinced;

but it is dishonest and hypocritical to change,

and yet to pretend that he is still advocating what he always believed.

Brother John Thomas

The Herald

1851-52

Our sympathies

are with the people as sheep without a shepherd;

our antipathies against those who scatter them,

and pervert the right ways of the Lord.

Brother John Thomas

True views will keep a man in the path of wise action,

while erroneous views may turn him into a fool.

Brother Robert Roberts

The Ways of Providence

There is no peace to the wicked.

God is angry with them.

There is no life out of Christ for anybody,

though it would be a “philanthropic” thing to bestow good indiscriminately.

There is no setting aside the law of God, though God is love.

There is no escaping the judgments which are coming on the world,

though God intends to bless the world through Abraham and his seed.

“ First pure, then peaceable :”

this is the divine rule.

First conformity to God's arrangement;

then reconciliation, tranquility, and joy.

Brother Robert Roberts

1866

Truth can stand any test.

Truth is immortal;

and fears nothing but the lukewarmness of her friends,

in whose house she is more frequently wounded

than in conflict with her foes-

-Brother John Thomas

Herald of the Kingdom

1851 pg. 96

We have no use for those who cause the Truth to be evil spoken of by their malpractice,

and certain we are they can have no use for us.

If people who profess the Truth dishonor that Truth,

they dishonor us.

And we do not want, nor will condescend to have,

any cooperation with them.

They are only stumbling blocks and hindrances in the way,

and the Truth can never progress in the shadow of their obliquity.

Nothing can be done with the unbelieving where the brethren are unfaithful to the Truth.

Brother John Thomas

Brethren, whether rich or poor,

should all remember

that when they are redeemed from the sins of the past,

in putting on the Christ-robe of righteousness,

through the obedience of faith,

they are "a purchased people:'

and that when so purchased,

the purchaser bought all they possess;

so that they are no longer their own,

but property of another.

Now, when a man purchases a servant,

he does not buy him to sit all his days

with a bushel on his head in complacent quietude.

A slave owns nothing, neither himself, nor anything belonging to self

before he came a slave.

Such is the relation of brethren to Christ,

their Lord and Master.

A complacently quiescent Christian is one who will never inherit the kingdom,

though his faith be ever so orthodox,

or his baptism ever so valid.

He is an unprofitable concealer of his Master's property in a napkin.

Brother John Thomas

in a letter to brother Roberts

My Days and My Ways

pg 40

The estimate of wrong doings

depends upon the standard recognized.

The standard current in communities

would not include Bible depreciation

in the category of wrong doing;

but by the standard established by God in Israel

(which is the standard recognized by true brethren in Christ),

there is no greater act of wrong doing

than to interfere with His own Word.

Brother Robert Roberts

“It is a good thing to be “for peace,” and to “exercise charity,”

but these must be held in subordination

to the conditions which divinely precede them.

God is the pattern.

The perfection of peace is the ultimate design of all His procedure,

but never for the sake of peace does He abandon

any of the conditions which are necessary to secure it.

“ First pure, then peaceable” - this is the divine rule.

First conformity to God's arrangement;

then reconciliation, tranquility, and joy.

Here is our example. The word says,

“The ecclesia is the pillar and ground of the truth.”

The ecclesia must therefore maintain the truth at all hazards.

Peace or no peace, we must have the truth.

This is the first consideration.

The word exhorts us to contend earnestly for the faith .

No “charity” can be scriptural which interferes with these functions.

Brother Robert Roberts

1878

If ignorance were bliss,

God would not have troubled himself to reveal so much to make us wise.

Brother John Thomas

Do what is right,

be valiant for the truth, teach it without compromise,

and all the lovers of the truth will approve you:

for all others, you need not care a rush.

Brother John Thomas

from a letter to brother Roberts Dec. 1865

The cure for all evil is the exaltation of

“the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ.”

These must always constitute the staple;

anything that would lessen their importance, or dim their glory, is evil.

Deep things (as some speak) are only accessory,

and the depth is more in the mode of their expression

than in the things themselves, when understood.

The true deep things are

“the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.”

These are the feast of fat things upon which the soul will fatten;

all other deep things take the flesh off the bones.

Brother Robert Roberts

1868

Men who ignore affirmations, figures, inferences, and such like,

will never come to the understanding belief of the truth themselves,

nor be able to teach it to others.

Scripture must be compared with scripture, seeming contradictions harmonized,

and the meaning extracted in keeping with the whole apostolic and prophetic word.

The meaning extracted is an inference or conclusion; and when affirmed becomes a proposition, and a divine one too:

and he that rejects it, rejects the Word in its teaching,

though he may cling to words in the Word.

Brother John Thomas

The Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come

1856, p. 185

The earth is Yahweh's, for He made it;

it is temporarily "given into the hand of the wicked"

till the king shall come to possess it with his saints to the uttermost parts thereof.

"He hath established it for ever."

No interpretation that would falsify these statements can be true.

All theories of that kind must therefore be rejected as mere idle tales

in which only the children of the apostasy can delight.

Brother John Thomas

The truth comes in and makes breaches where none would be.

This is in accordance with what Christ said would be the operation of his word

-a sword and a fire, causing separations.

The truth accepted makes fast friends, other conditions being equal;

but the truth professed and betrayed, isolates from the betrayers all its true friends,

whatever excellence of personal quality may exist.

If such as the individuals in question embraced the whole truth,

co-operation would follow as a natural result.

Compromise is impossible.

The truth must be upheld in all its vital elements.

One would propose to make immortality an open question;

another, the judgment; another, the devil;

another, the nature of Christ; another, the kingdom.

Give them all their way, and there would not be a vestige of the truth left.

The only safe policy, in the absence of the king,

is to insist on all the elements of the faith,

refusing the first false step that leads to perdition.

Degrees of knowledge there may be, but difference of faith there must not be.

One faith, one hope, one mind, and one judgment:

this is the apostolic cue, which we do well to hold on by, hoping thus to save ourselves, and all who may be influenced by us.

Brother Robert Roberts

1871

The sacrifice of Christ could not be for us without being for himself inclusively.

What was accomplished was accomplished in himself alone.

We come on to the foundation he laid.

It does not appear how the sacrifice of Christ for us could be scripturally understood without this being perceived.

Away from this, the heathen notion of substitution is the only idea that remains.

Brother Robert Roberts

1888

"It is one of the cruelties of the present age that faithful friends of Christ (who are lovers of God and man) should be charged with the contentions

and divisions arising from the oppositions and corruptions of men not subject to the Spirit of God.

The atheist says,

“Look at the divisions of Christendom-Catholic Church, Greek Church, Anglican Church (High, Low, and Broad),

Congregationalist, Baptist, Methodist, &c.: Fine Christianity! ”

The Churchman says,

“Look what comes of dissent-divisions and sub-divisions-Methodists, and Wesleyan Methodists, and Free Methodists,

and Primitive Methodists, Baptists, and General Baptists, and Particular Baptists.”

The Dissenter says,

“Look at what comes of your little sects. Brethren and Christian Brethren, and Plymouth Brethren, Bible Christians, Reformed Bible Christians, &c., &c.”

We come down to the grain of fine gold in the midst of the mountain of worthless quartz

-the unadulterated truth as brought to light by Dr. Thomas;

and half-and-half believers say,

“Look at your valour for pure doctrine and a wholly inspired Bible!

What comes of it? Dowieites and Renunciationists, and No-willists, and Partialists, and Christadelphians;

endless divisions and bitterness and confusion.”

What can a man do who believes in God and knows his way,

and is determined, at all hazard, to be found in the path of truth and purity,

in the midst of the indifference and corruption that fill the whole so-called Christian world?

He can but endure a situation that is not of his seeking or his liking, and patiently wait the issue, which is sure to come.

That issue will justify a careful adhesion to divine ways in the midst of pain and opprobrium;

and it will condemn the indifferentism and godlessness of a complacent world as much as it did in the days of Noah."

Brother Robert Roberts

The Christadelphian 1886

The sentence 'Thou shalt surely die',

is proof that the phrase 'in the day' relates to a longer period than the day of the natural eating. This was not a sentence to be consummated in a moment, as when a man is shot or guillotined. It required time; for the death threatened was the result, or finishing, of a certain process; which is very clearly in the Hebrew.

Brother John Thomas

Elpis Israel, p. 68